Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to inform the House about a Statement that the Government have made today on how they intend to strengthen the country's railways over the next seven years and beyond. It is the most ambitious strategy for growth on the railways in more than 50 years. The Statement is made against a background not of decline or crisis, as in the past, but of remarkable success for our railway network. "Of course, anyone who travels regularly by rail, as many of us in this House do, knows that big challenges remain before our country has the rail system that it needs. There is no room for complacency. But the measures that the Government have put in place since the Hatfield tragedy mean that our railways are safer than ever before. Reliability, which declined sharply after Hatfield, is improving strongly across most lines, and passenger satisfaction has improved. There has been sustained investment in the network itself; for instance, in the modernisation of the west coast main line and in new rolling stock. The result is that more freight and more people are travelling by rail than at any time in the past 50 years. "So our challenge today is not about managing decline but about how we can build on this solid progress to provide a railway that carries more passengers on more and better trains on frequent, reliable, safe and affordable services. This needs government, working with the industry, the regulator and passenger groups, to take action in three main areas: first, to secure continued improvements in safety and reliability; secondly, to achieve a major increase in capacity to meet rising demand; and, thirdly, to deliver sustained investment through a fair deal for passengers and taxpayers."Let me take each in turn. On safety and reliability, safety has improved, and reliability is back to the levels seen before Hatfield, even though we are running many more trains. Those who work on our railways deserve credit for their focus. The White Paper sets out how the Government intend to continue reducing the risks to passengers and staff on our railways. We also intend to build on the improvements in reliability, which now see 88 per cent of services running on time. By 2014, the Government want this figure to reach 92.6 per cent, through investment in new rolling stock, maintenance and equipment, which would make our railway one of the most reliable in Europe. And, for the first time, the Government will require the industry to concentrate on cutting, by one quarter, delays of more than 30 minutes—those that cause the most inconvenience to passengers. But as safety and reliability have improved, passenger numbers have increased. Overcrowding has become a real issue for many commuters. The White Paper contains the biggest single commitment for a generation to increasing the capacity of the railway through more services and longer trains. By 2014, the Government will have invested £10 billion to make this happen."Starting now, and over the next seven years, there will be 1,300 new carriages to ease overcrowding in London and other cities such as Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester; £600 million of investment to tackle bottlenecks at Birmingham New Street and Reading stations; the £5.5 billion transformation of Thameslink, which provides a vital north-south artery into and across London; and new plans put in place for the development of each of our main lines, including the next generation of InterCity trains and signalling. This Government are also committed to ensuring that we close no rural lines in this period. "This continued investment will provide nearly 100,000 new seats for passengers on InterCity and commuter trains to our major cities. The Government's proposals will accommodate a further seven years of record passenger growth and, at the same time, will start to tackle some of the worst overcrowding on some of our busiest services. There will be some 14,500 more seats in the peak hour on Thameslink alone, and although Crossrail remains subject to financial and parliamentary approval, it has the potential to deliver a similar scale of improvement for east-west services in the capital."The White Paper also outlines other improvements that groups such as Passenger Focus say passengers want to see: a radical simplification of the fares structure, and the modernisation of tickets to allow people to use smartcards; a further £150 million in 150 stations in the towns and cities outside London, which form the backbone of the national network; better and safer stations from Wolverhampton to Dartmouth, Cleethorpes to Swansea, and Barking to Chester; and support for Transport 2000's idea of local station plans so that people can have better access to the railway and make it part of a greener travel choice. The Government are also investing £200 million in a strategic freight network that will both help to reduce congestion on our roads and the environmental impact of moving goods."Underpinning all this needs to be sustained investment. Having fought its way back to a stable financial footing, following the demise of Railtrack, it is essential that the industry maintains financial discipline. Both passengers and taxpayers have suffered the consequences of past financial crises. The Government will not allow a return to those days. "The challenge is to deliver the sustained investment the rail system needs while continuing to protect passengers, but we must also strike a fair balance between the call on taxpayers and fare payers. Because the Government are determined to continue to protect passengers, any increases in regulated tickets will remain capped at RPI plus 1 per cent. These account for more than half the use of the railway and include season tickets and saver fares. "There has been some recent debate about unregulated fares, for unregulated fares operators can vary prices to respond to customer demand. So, some unregulated ticket prices have increased. This is something the Government will monitor closely and is why today they are committing to give Passenger Focus more say in the specification of future franchises before they are tendered. At the same time, many other tickets have been discounted. In fact, around 80 per cent of passengers do not use the headline-catching first and peak tickets, but buy either a regulated ticket or a discounted product. A significant number of these fares have fallen in real terms over the past 10 years with many deals cheaper in cash terms than they were under British Rail. "The result is that many more people are now choosing to travel by rail—some 340 million more passengers each year than in 1997. This strong growth also means the railways need less taxpayer subsidy. In the difficult years of Railtrack, it was the taxpayer who footed the bill. The proportion of subsidy funding nearly doubled in five years. It is right that the Government now seek to return it closer to historic levels. This Government are meeting their goals; that is, protecting passengers and achieving a fair balance between the taxpayer and the travelling public, while delivering the necessary investment that we all agree is needed. "Today's White Paper has set out the Government's ambition for a railway capable of carrying double the number of passengers and twice the amount of freight by 2030 with modern trains and a network whose reliability and safety counts among the best in Europe. This is not a White Paper that rests on distant promises of all or nothing projects. Schemes such as new north-south lines may have their place and we will consider them if and as the need arises. This is a strategy that seeks to deliver real improvements which reflect passengers' priorities and builds on the real achievements and successes of our rail system over the past decade."Twenty-five years ago, the railways were advertising, "This is the age of the train", but it was against a background of falling demand and chronic under-investment in trains and infrastructure. Perhaps that claim was premature. By building on the progress of the past 10 years with sustained investment and increased capacity, and by harnessing the full environmental gains of rail transport, we will be entering a new and exciting era of rail travel. The White Paper is a resounding vote of confidence in Britain's railways and I commend it to the House".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.